A few basic movements can elevate your fitness tremendously. With these you can build a solid foundation with which to finish a Spartan Race. Jeff Godin, Ph.D., CSCS, SGX, and a Spartan group training and certified coach designed workouts like this so you can assemble the building blocks of your fitness base.
Dynamic warm-up
Always start your workout with a warm-up, Gordin (and most professionals will say.) But Godin is more specific about the purpose of such warm-ups. “Although flexibility and unrestricted movement may be important for long term injury prevention, static stretching and flexibility exercises are not an important part of a warm-up. Stretching moves a joint through its full range of motion; however, it does this passively and does very little to increase the temperature of muscle.”
Instead he recommends active warm-ups that progresses from low intensity towards high intensity. “The benefits of a warm-up include: increased tissue temperature, tissue compliance, energy metabolism, movement efficiency and reduced tissue stiffness. The warm-up can also be used to reinforce fundamental movement mechanics related to speed and agility,” he said.
As a general rule, he says, perform one set of each movement at a slow speed for 20 yards and then perform a second set at a faster speed. Stationary movements should be performed for 15 repetitions.
Main exercise set
- 150 jumping jacks
- 15 burpees
- 5-15 pull-ups
- 15 box jumps
- 50 sit-ups
- 50 bodyweight squats
- 50 jumping lunges
- 5 rope climbs or 25’ bear crawls
- Run 1.5 miles
Repeat main set if needed.
Always stretch to cool down once your workout is complete.
WOD: Endurance
“You are free to earn your fitness, and with it your earn your ability to achieve all that it allows you to accomplish. All you need is running and burpees, the rest is up to you.
Try to go for 2-3 hours. Bring water, and a snack,” the Spartan WOD team suggests.